"You got drunk," Jesse said, "and made an asshole of yourself. And now you're trying to pretend you didn't."

"Guy gave me shit," Bellino said.

"Guy you punched out?" Jesse said.

"Yeah. I'm supposed to take shit from some asshole don't even live here? I'm supposed to let some smalltown jerkoff cops blindside me with pepper spray?"

"Why not?"

"I don't take shit," Bellino said.

"We all take shit," Jesse said. "And we all like to pretend we don't."

"You think I'm pretending?"

"Nobody likes to face up to being a stupid drunk," Jesse said.

"You calling me stupid?"

"Sure," Jesse said. "Everybody's stupid when they drink."

"You little fuck," Bellino said, and shoved Jesse.

Jesse kneed him in the groin. As Bellino flinched, his head lowered and Jesse took a left handful of his hair and pulled Bellino forward past him and caught Bellino's wrist with his right hand and turned Bellino's arm up behind Bellino's back. He ran Bellino across the small cell and banged him face first up against the cell wall and held him there. Bellino was gasping for air. Jesse held him against the wall another minute while the hot haze of his anger seeped back into him and dissipated. When Jesse let Bellino go, Bellino staggered to the bunk along the other wall of the cell and sank onto it, his breath rasping in and out.

"I want you to be quiet," Jesse said. "Later this morning someone will take you over to Peabody and you'll appear before a magistrate and pay a fine and go home… quietly."

Bellino nodded.

"Everybody's a jerk sometimes," Jesse said.

"You hadn't kicked me in the balls…" Bellino said.

"But I did," Jesse said. "And might again."

"Cops ain't supposed to hit somebody they arrested."

Jesse smiled at him. "That's correct," Jesse said.

He turned and left the cell and locked the door.